


You Are In Love

by HustleK



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, Let them have fun, M/M, soft, they're just enjoying each other's company ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:33:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26008066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HustleK/pseuds/HustleK
Summary: "And you understand now why they lost their minds and fought the wars and why I've spent my whole life trying to put it into words"In which Joe and Nicky spend some time on the Amalfi Coast enjoying each other's company and being deeply in love
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 12
Kudos: 134





	You Are In Love

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic was inspired by You Are In Love by Taylor Swift from her album 1989 and I love her and I love these two

It was past midnight in their safehouse on the Amalfi Coast. The pair had gotten the two-bedroom place sometime in the 16th century and had since gone through many renovations. It had been a while since Joe and Nicky had visited and decided that the Italian summer would do them some good.

They were currently on their balcony drinking decaf, enjoying the breeze and each other’s silent company. They stood next to each other, arms just touching as they sipped from painted mugs Nicky had bought at the farmers markets the week before.

Joe finished his drink and set it on the small yellow table they had outside. He leaned back against the railing and tilted his head to look at the heavens. Nicky followed his actions but came closer to his partner, leaning into his side and snaking an arm behind him.

“What are you thinking about?” Nicky asked.

Joe tilted his head to rest against Nicky’s, “Constellations,” he replied, “The one’s my mother used to teach me. The sky was much clearer back then.”

Nicky let out a yawn to which Joe glanced down and pulled him closer. They looked at each other for a moment before returning to the scatters of twinkling lights in the dark blue sky.

“One day, we’ll be able to see the sky as it was back then,” Nicky said as his eyes started to droop.

Joe looked down at his husband’s sleepy state, the way his hair was ruffled from the day spent at the beach and the tiny freckles the summer brought on his skin. Maybe he’d get to see all the stars again but for now, the only one he needed was in his arms.

The pair woke the next day to sunlight streaming through the sheer curtains, the sea breeze coming in and the low chatter of the people below them. They didn’t know how long they spent on their mattress on the newly swept floor but they hadn’t gotten up.

At the present moment, Joe was half propped up against the wall sketching and Nicky was pressed up against his side, drawing patterns with his finger on his love’s skin.

“Nicolò, are you drawing flowers on me?” Joe asked, smiling down at him.

“Perhaps,” Nicky replied.

Joe leaned over to his side, reaching for a spare charcoal pencil and gave it to Nicky, “Here, now you can draw too.”

He took the pencil from Joe and turned so he was lying on his stomach, facing Joe, and began drawing on his stomach. Joe continued sketching, while the charcoal slightly tickled him. Nicky started drawing; a few blades of grass starting at the hips, a tree that extended to just above his stomach, and sunflowers facing the moon opposite the tree.

Nicky paused and looked up at Joe, loving the way his eyebrows furrowed in concentration and how some of his curls would fall on his forehead when it got long. He noticed, stopped drawing and glanced over his sketchbook, “What is it, my love?”

“Nothing, just admiring,” he replied with a slight smile on his face.

Joe moved to sit up properly, pulling Nicky up with him to sit by his side. He blew on his paper dramatically, like how they do in movies, earning a chuckle from Nicky. “Here, take a look,” Joe said, handing Nicky his book.

Joe’s sketches never ceased to amaze Nicky. The way he manages to put the entire world and more into a singular page, capturing all of the light, shade, emotion and passion; he would never be tired of it.

Today, Joe sketched a few things in their room; the windowsill they used to grow herbs and flowers, the stack of old books in the corner of the room, the vines growing on the balcony archway which they can just see through the open door of their room, and on the bottom half of the page, Nicky drawing on Joe, deep in thought.

“I added that flower in your hair when I saw that you started drawing flowers on my stomach.” Joe said fondly.

Nicky smiled up at him and gave him a small kiss on his cheek, “I love it, like always.”

Joe moved to get up from the mattress, earning a groan from Nicky and a few, “No, Yusuf stay,” and “Come back, my love,” and a few other incomprehensible mutterings. Nicky pushed himself up, leaning his head on one of his palms, looking at Joe as he examined the drawings on his skin in the mirror by the door. “Not bad, _habibi_ ,” Joe mumbled, “Not bad at all.”

Nicky lied back, staring at the ceiling as Joe walked back to him, “When you’ve been watching the greatest artist in history for nearly a millennium, you pick up a few things.”

Joe looked down at Nicky, half covered by the wrinkled sheets, looking casual and relaxed in the soft light filtering through the room. Bending down, he picked up a shirt from the night before not knowing who it belonged to and threw it to his husband’s face, earning another groan.

“Well come, this artist needs to eat,” Joe said as he made his way to the bathroom.

Nicky elicited a few more mumbles and groans in Italian but eventually gave in to hunger and his husband.

Once they were decent, the pair made their way hand in hand onto the colourful cobblestone streets of the Amalfi Coast towards the small café down the street. They sat down outside at the fading brown tables, waiting for their pizza and coffee watching as people began arriving home from work and the younger ones start leaving for the night.

“We’re such tourists,” Joe said as their food came, “eating pizza in Italy.”

“Well I’m not eating whatever the hell Pizza Hut is,” Nicky replied as he took a bite into his pizza.

“Or drinking whatever Starbucks is,” Joe riffed, earning a laugh from the other.

Nicky watched as the sun went down behind Joe, framing him and giving him a little halo of warmth and light. The summer always looked good on Joe, brought out the tan and gold on his skin.

As the sun was just a blip on the horizon, more and more people started coming out. Mostly young people looking for a night of fun, to forget for a moment then to wake up with a killer headache and perhaps in a stranger’s bed.

Nicky’s eyes trailed them as they headed towards the beach where a few bars and restaurants would be. “We should join them,” he said.

“Them?” Joe said as he turned around to see who Nicky was looking at, “What, go to the clubs, drink and dance?”

“Yes! Come on, how long has it been since we’ve done that?”

Joe looked behind him again, deciding, then faced his husband again, “Okay, let’s go.”

They downed the last of their coffee and trailed behind a group that was heading to what was presumably, the most popular and biggest club judging from the amount of people heading in.

“We’re dressed okay, right?” Nicky asked as they waited in line, “Not too casual?”

“My love, if you’re asking if you look okay, then you know what I will say. But if you’re asking if we’re wearing the right attire for the venue, then I think our linen shirts will do fine.”

The two were let in without so much as a glance from the bouncer and they were instantly bombarded with the booming music and strobe lights from the dance floor. “Is this what modern music sounds like?” Nicky half-yelled into Joe’s ear.

“It appears so,” Joe yelled back.

“Drinks?"

“Let’s do a shot and another drink.”

Nicky led the way to the crowded bar, Joe following but staying a few metres back so as to not add to the crowd. Nicky ordered in a string of extremely fast Italian and brought back their drinks, shot glasses held in his hand and beer bottles somehow squeezed between his arms and torso.

Taking his shot glass and bottle, Joe raised his glass to Nicky, “To us.”

“To us.”

The two downed their shots, barely wincing and never breaking eye contact. They stayed on the outskirts of the floor, chatting and finishing the other drink.

“Come, Nicoló,” Joe said as he set down his finished bottle, “I want to dance.”

Nicky set down his drink and followed Joe into the middle of the floor, gently holding his hand as they made their way through the crowd. Joe stopped and turned to Nicky, pulling him flush towards his own body and holding him as they danced along to the beat.

“I didn’t realise you could still dance,” Nicky teased.

“I am the better dancer of the two of us and you know it.” Joe quipped back as he spun Nicky and brought him back, resting his hands on his hips, the other swinging them around his neck.

“I’m much better at the waltz though.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that.”

By the time the two stumbled out, it was well past midnight and the summer night breeze felt cool on their skin after the heat of the club. Joe’s curls were sticking to his forehead and Nicky’s could feel the sweat on the back of his neck.

“Yusuf,” Nicky said whilst leaning against a wall, “That was not a shot and a drink.”

Joe let out a laugh, “Nicoló, you kept going back to the bar bringing drinks for the both of us, so this is on you.”

“Excuse me, half the time it was you who was asking for more.”

Joe cocked his head at Nicky, wondering how he, of all the people who had ever lived, got the chance to spend near-eternity with the kindest man in the world. He extended his hand, “Come, let’s go home.”

Nicky took his hand and they walked back together, lamps basking the streets in a warm glow and the occasional rows of houses stringing fairy lights between them. They were halfway back when Joe stopped them outside an old building that was playing some slow jazz through the speakers. “Probably some museum,” he said.

Nicky walked backwards to the middle of the street, pulling Joe with him, holding one arm up and the other circled around his waist. “This is more like it,” he said.

“Hmm,” Joe sighed as he leaned his head against Nicky’s, “I love you.”

“No poetry?” Nicky teased, “I only kid _amore mio_ , I love you too.”

Joe smiled in content and spun the other around then pulled him back flush against him and lowered him into a dip. “I’ll give you poetry later,” he said, giving him a chaste kiss.

Joe raised him up again and circled both his arms around Nicky, burying his nose in the space between his neck and shoulder. He smelled a bit like the ocean and another bit like the peach body wash he was using; like the Italian summer.

“Yusuf?”

“Yes, Nicoló?”

“I’m sleepy.”

Joe chuckled at his partner’s slightly drunken and tired state, “We’ll go home in a few minutes, let me just dance with you for a bit more.”

They stumbled home eventually to their blue painted door, accidentally take a wrong turn on the way earning a few, “No Joe, it’s this way” and a few more, “Nicoló, I swear it’s this way.”

Joe leaned against the wall, watching as Nicky fumbled with the key and the lock in the pale moonlight.

“The moon doesn’t shine as bright as you do, nor will the stars reflect your eyes for I will always treasure you above all the universe can offer me.” Joe said, eyes slightly glazed.

Nicky smiled softly as he opened the door, “There’s the poetry.”


End file.
